Christmas and New Years: 2015

I like to spend Christmas at home -- and apparently I get my way. My girls asked if we could go to "grandma's" for Christmas, and I said "we always go there." And then I thought about it, and realized that we hadn't been for a really long time. So, we decided we could make the trek this year. There's usually a houseful around the holidays, but everyone went for Thanksgiving this year, so Chloe & Sophie had Grandma to themselves -- just the way they like it. Brandon took the whole week off, so we were spoiled having so much time with him. It was a really nice time.

We went up to Afton on Tuesday, getting there just after they had returned from a full day in Idaho Falls. On Wednesday we went and visited my grandma who is now living in a nursing home there in Star Valley. We took her a gift from Libbie, and spent pretty much the whole time helping her try the different outfits on. Wednesday evening we held a little Christmas Eve program. The girls had prepared some talents to share.

Chloe played "Joy to the World" on the piano.

Sophie brought her harmonica and played two songs: "Silent Night," and "Home on the Range" -- a special song she picked out just for her grandpa. I spontaneously decided to participate, and played a little "Christmas is Coming."

Grandma read a story that had little nativity pieces to go along with it, and then Grandpa read the Christmas story out of Luke.

Pajama tradition continued -- they always get a new pair of pajamas to open on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning we made the kids wait until after breakfast, everyone was dressed, and my dad went and got Grandma to spend Christmas with us, to open presents. But... we did let Chloe open one special gift. She had bought her GoPro camera a month ago, but didn't have quite enough money left over to get any memory for it, so it was kind of useless. Luckily, Aunt Nicole came through, and her parents were smart enough to guess that is what was in that package, so we had her open it first thing that morning. She was all excited, but once she got the memory in she realized the battery was low! Poor girl. She was able to hurry and get it charged before we were ready to open gifts.

Opening gifts -- Chloe is about to open her quilt Grandma made her for her new room. And can you see her pillows she got on the couch? She's gonna have a whole new bed!

Sophie got bears and owls, what more could she ask for? Oh, and lots of books! That's her carved bear that my mom got her in Albuquerque, and the stuffed bear I got for her at the fort in Bluff. She fell in love with him, and I thought I could sneak him as a gift to put a smile on her face. She named him Oliver, for me :)

Chloe with her new bedding, and lots of hair stuff! Plus, showing off her GoPro.

My dad wanted to take us sledding while there, but I think we let him down. The girls just weren't into it, and I hadn't come prepared for that. They were happy to just go out and sled on grandma's "hill" she made.

My parents got a new fridge for Christmas. I got a really bad photo of it -- but I'm including it here because my mom had asked for one. Sorry, this is the best I could do in that tight space!

We got a ton of board games for Christmas, and I believe we played all of them while still in Afton. Good thing we love to play games together.

For New Year's Eve we continued our tradition of going to the EVE celebration on Temple Square. This year we invited the Stephen's, which makes it so fun. We got there a little early because Chloe wanted to have time to take some pictures of the lights before it got dark -- but turns out it was a little too bright to capture the pretty lights. We still had fun walking around for a bit before the night began.

Here we are in the tabernacle, all spread out, to save a seat for when our friends got there. We sang our hearts out at the Broadway show tunes sing-along. It's my favorite event of the whole year. Chloe was actually the very first person to get the microphone, but of course she bombed. She wouldn't sing a thing! Luckily I got a turn, but it was on "If I Were a Rich Man" -- not exactly the best song for me to sing, but at least I tried!

Afterwards we got a semigroup shot.

And then Kellie took one with me in it :)

Then it got dark enough to shoot the pretty lights!

We went over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to participate in the FamilySearch activities they usually have, but they decided to cancel them this year. I'm not sure why, but it was a disappointment :( We weren't ready to go eat dinner because we were still waiting for the Stephen's dad to get off work and join us, so we decided to just go up to the top floor and look out at the awesome view. I could not manage to get an awesome shot of it, but here's something for the record books.

The girls just had fun hanging out with their friends, and Brandon, Kellie and I got to visit.

We spent some time in the South Visitor's Center before going to another Broadway show -- this time it was just the representatives from Hale Centre Theatre performing some songs from the upcoming season. Even though I didn't get to sing along, it was still fun to listen to them and get excited about the plays that are coming!

Then Quentin was able to join us, and we went and ate dinner at the Nauvoo Cafe. But during dinner we could tell Kiera wasn't feeling the best. We are a bunch of indecisive people -- but finally came to a decision that we should just go to their house and play some games. Vocal Point was the closing act for the evening, so that's really all we missed out on. They had canceled the firework show due to poor air quality. At least they were being responsible! So, off to Centerville it was! We had a ton of fun playing Telestrations and eating snacks, and then we turned on the TV to countdown to the new year and made toasts with sparkling white grape juice.

On Thursday we celebrated our new year and last day of having Brandon around (until the next holiday) by going to see "The Tree of Life" in Draper. And then we stopped for Jamba Juice on the way home. It was way too cold for me, so I passed, but I believe we rang in the new year on a very happy note.